Monthly Archives: October 2009

Rockstar has announced the Rockstar Legacy Collection of PSP games.

Starting today, Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition, Midnight Club: L.A. Remix and Manhunt 2 will be available for digital download from PSN for PSP.

An official Rockstar-branded storefront on PSN will also launch on October 22, and it will offer new and Legacy Rockstar titles for the PSP system, including Beaterator, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, and The Warriors, all available for digital download.

Hooray.

Thanks, MaxConsole.

We here at VG247 do not usually like to blow our own horn, but in this case we’re going to anyway.

The site was up for three Games Media Awards: Best Games Website, Specialist Writer (Web) and Games Blog.

We are pleased, honored, and proud to say that we won for Games Blog, and the Specialist Writer award went to the undisputed world heavy weight champion of videogame news, Patrick Garratt.

(I added that first bit in there.)

Our lovely pals over at Eurogamer got Best Website! Gratz guys and gals.

To top things off, Pat also went home with an award for Games Media Legend, which was handed out by last year’s winner Steve Jarrett.

We here at VG247 could not have done this without you, our dear readers.

Once Pat has received the obligatory slaps on the back, and recovers from the shock, he will more than likely post something on this tomorrow.

You can read over the liveblogging of the event through here, complete with quips uttered by the horrible comedian who opened up the proceedings.

Looks like no NPDs for you tonight folks. The numbers have been delayed until Monday, October 19.

Anita Frazier tweeted the bad news, now David Riley has sent out the same announcement via email:

“We have just released a communication to our clients, explaining that, due to last minute processing requirements, the NPD Video Games Retail Tracking information for September 2009 will now be released on Monday, October 19. We will issue our media advisory at 6:30pm EST on Monday. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

Don’t cry. It’s only a few extra days.

Sony has officially announced the availability of a new PS3 Slim with a 250Gb hard drive hitting store shelves on November 3.

It will run you $349.99.

See for yourself over on the US PS Blog.

And we just got a 160Gb fatty last month. We’ll go cry in the corner now.

[Update] We are live, folks.

The Games Media Awards takes place tonight in London’s Camden, and VG247′s up for three of them. God willing, we may actually win something this time.

We’re in the running for Best Games Website, Specialist Writer (Web) and Games Blog.

The ceremony starts at 8.00pm BST tonight, and we’ll be liveblogging it after the break.

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Jonathan Knight, the executive producer for Dante’s Inferno, revealed during yesterday’s EA’s “Naughty and Nice” holiday press event that players will unlock an Achievement for killing the scary, unbaptized infants in the game.

Called the “Bad Nanny” Achievement, it is unknown how many of the babes with knives for arms you will have to slaughter to get it, but there it is anyway.

Surely someone out there will find fault with this, but it’s not like if you tickle them you’ll be left alone.

It takes place in Hell after all.

More over on UGO.

During the latest Iwata Asks segment, Miyamoto declares that he carries a tape measure around because he likes to guess the length of things, apparently.

“Well, I love measuring things,” he tells a laughing Satoru Iwata. “Why don’t you try carrying a tape measure around with you? You’re missing out! It’s a lot of fun, I’m telling you!”

Ah that Miyamoto. He sure is a card.

Also mentioned during the conversation, was that Miyamoto’s so pleased with WiiFit Plus that he’d like to go door-to-door and get people to switch out their old WiiFits.

“As one of the people who created and sold the previous title, I would actually like to go door-to-door to each and every user who bought WiiFit and say: “Please exchange your old copy for this new one!”

The full, wacky thing is through here.

THQ has announced that its free DLC for Dawn of War II, The Last Stand, is now available worldwide.

In it, there’s an all-new cooperative survival mode which provides control of individual hero units and drops a small multiplayer team into a battle.

Players can choose between a Space Marine Captain, Eldar Farseer or Ork Mekboy and team up with two other squad-mates. Hero units level up and are fully customizable as new armor and weapons become available.

The Last Stand is included in an automatic update that also contains two new multiplayer maps, balance updates and bug fixes.

More information can be obtained through Relic’sofficial website.

Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg has told Game Informer that he is unconcerned with PS3 and Wii price cuts, citing that PS3 being number one on the charts is expected.

“I can tell you to that when NPD releases September sales later today, we fully expect PlayStation 3 will come in as the console with the most units sold for the month,” he said. “This is frankly not a real surprise to us or the analysts that follow this industry, as it is typical to see a short term bump following the introduction of new hardware and pricing into the marketplace.

“What I can tell you is we remain confident that Xbox 360 will not only outsell PS3 for the full calendar year, but for this entire generation.

“It is similar to a game of baseball. It is not about just winning one inning, but instead being able to win the game by consistently delivering across all nine innings.”

More through Gamasutra.

Like Bowie, Queen, and Iggy Pop before them, Blur are to be LEGOized in Lego Rock Band.

You can see the boys in action hammering along to Song 2 in their blocky forms over on Rolling Stone.

Thanks to RS, we keep shouting WHOO HOO through the house. Nice one.

Rockstar has sent over the new video for The Ballad of Gay Tony, which shows the Nightlife in Liberty City.

The video teases an upcoming episode of the celebrity gossip show, Fizz!, where people are exposed doing all sorts of drunken, scandalous, and not-so-glamorous things.

Can’t wait for its release later this month.

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According to a post over on Jezebel citing a recent Wall Street Journal article, videogame marketers still cannot grasp how to target girl gamers properly, thus resorting to stereotypes.

The WSJ highlighted games like Charm Girls Club, Littlest Pet Shop, Just Dance and Wii Fit, along with the lilac-colored Hannah Montana PSP as a way for marketing to go after the female gamer.

This prompted the Jezebel author to state:

Some of us like pink, some of us don’t. Some of us have all the latest tech, some of us don’t. Some of us prefer computer games, some of us don’t. Getting the picture? We’re all different.

The article offers up three points for videogame marketers: Women gamers are not a monolith, switch up your advertising and when rethinking marketing, start internally.

If you want to attract more women, involve more women in the process of creating games. Hire more women at your organization. Reach out to women who already identify as gamers.

We feel ashamed of our sparkle pink laptop now. Kidding. It’s black.

Thanks, GamePolitics.

Ubisoft game designer Dean Evans has provided a walkthrough of some of the features in Splinter Cell: Conviction.

In it, Dean takes you through trying to interrogate a Black Arrow officer and explains how the development team wanted to make things as seamless as possible.

You can watch it after the break, courtesy of Gamespot.

Games’s out in February next year.

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Jenny Barbour, the associate producer of BUZZ!, has announced over on the US PS Blog that the Space Quiz Pack for the quiz game will land on PSN today.

It’s got over 500 questions to test your knowledge on everything solar system related, and beyond.

Some of the sample questions posted include: Which planet in our solar system is the smallest?

One of the options is Pluto, but the poor fella was demoted recently, so we’ll go with Mercury.

If you head on over through the link, you’ll also find out more about BUZZ!: Quiz World for PS3 which is out this November.

All PS3 quiz packs will be interoperable between BUZZ!: Quiz TV and BUZZ!: Quiz World for PS3 and those of you who plan on getting the title for PSP will be happy to know that downloadable quiz packs will be made available for you as well.

Valve has announced details and timing for the demo of Left 4 Dead 2.

Apparently, the demo features gameplay taken from The Parish campaign set in the French Quarter.

Playable by 1 to 4 players over local or Internet connections on both the Xbox 360 and PC and two-player split screen available on the 360, the demo features all the new boss infected zombies and melee weapons included in the full product.

Those who pre-order the game will obtain early access to the demo on October 27, and then it will then be made available to Xbox Live Gold members and all PC gamers on November 3.

The Silver members will be able to try it out come November 10.

Full thing hits November 17.

A German group called Action Alliance has set up a “Killer Game Drive” to take place outside the Stuttgart State Opera on October 17, where the group will commence to smashing “killer” videogames to bits and throwing them into a bin.

To promote the cleansing of the country, the group has offered attendees the chance to win a signed jersey from the German national soccer team, and promotional images show a person deciding to throw away a Swastika instead of a videogame.

This has been your facepalm post of the day. We hope you enjoyed it.

Via D’toid (GamePolitics).

The Major has announced that a demo for Band Hero is up on Xbox Live Marketplace.

We think it’s only for Goldens at the moment, and it’s available everywhere except for Asia.

The demo features Finger Eleven’s “Paralyzer”, Katrina & The Waves’ “Walking on Sunshine” and Taylor Swift’s “Picture to Burn” and includes Party Play and Sing-Along mode.

Head on over here to learn more.

Finally, SEGA has confirmed that Obsidian’ spy RPG Alpha Protocol has been delayed until spring 2010.

“Alpha Protocol is a new take on the RPG genre and from day one the team has been working to make Alpha Protocol a truly unique game for players to experience.” said Obsidian boss, Feargus Urquhart. “We’re very happy that Sega has made the decision to hold back the shipment of the game in order to give it the best chance at becoming the publishing success that we at Obsidian and our partners at Sega are striving for”.

“Alpha Protocol has been a very promising title since the beginning of the development cycle,” said SEGA Europe MD, Alan Pritchard. “By pushing Alpha Protocol to Spring 2010, we can ensure that the game will be released in the best commercial release window possible and will also receive the focus this true AAA titles deserves.”

So there ya go.

Thanks, CVG.

Turbine has released a video for Siege of Mirkwood, the upcoming expansion to Lord of the Rings Online.

It looks rather fatalistic, to be honest.

Slated for release this December, the conclusion to Volume II: The Mines of Moria has players under the command of Lothlorien’s Celeborn and Galadriel, where you must fight through vast armies of Orcs alongside the Elves in a battle that will take you to the gates of Dol Guldur, the fortress of the Ringwraiths.

This update includes Book 9 and the Epilogue to last year’s expansion.

Wonder how many times we’ll get to hear the Ringwraiths scream?

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Infinity Ward’s Rob Bowling’s revealed to VG247 that Modern Warfare 2 was initially supposed to have full co-op in the its main Campaign, but was dropped as it “ruined the experience” the developer was aiming for.

The final game instead has Spec Ops mode – a dedicated, mission-based co-op section playable either online or locally in split-screen.

“We did it early on; that’s what Spec Ops started out as, as co-op through story,” said Bowling when asked why Campaign co-op didn’t make the final game.

“But it really broke the cinematic experience, took the immersion out of it, out of the story and the pacing and everything we’d spent so long crafting. It just ruined the experience we were aiming for, so we took it out, kept the single-player for that one player intact and polished it.”

Spec Ops was born from the good parts of the ditched co-op mode, Bowling said.

“But then there were moments that were really fun with two players, so we took those moments and put them in Spec Ops,” he added.

“So you can play moments directly taken from the single-player, in Spec Ops, but it’s polished towards those two players so the experience is pure. You really get the best of both worlds: you get the moments that were fun, but the moments that were shitty we took out.”

We just played a Brazilian Spec Ops level with Rob at a London hotel: it’s awesome. We’ll knock up some impressions tomorrow.

Modern Warfare 2 ships on November 10.